Anna Bolena

Published Friday 14 March 2008 at 11:05 by David Gutman

Forget cinema - when it comes to Tudorbethan drama, Donizetti got there first. Within a week of the release of a film about the Boleyn sisters, ETO scores a canny coup with its own take on Anne’s life. This is, in effect, a prequel to the same team’s acclaimed 2005 production of Maria Stuarda.

The modern performance history of Anna Bolena, Donizetti’s breakthrough opera, begins with a Callas production at La Scala. It is to ETO’s credit that the challenge of illustrious predecessors hasn’t deterred James Conway and Soutra Gilmour from reviving the work in fine, traditional style. If the two-tier set is contemporary functional, costumes are very much in period. In a departure from the company’s usual practice, the (radically pruned) score is presented in Italian with supertitles. Brazilian tenor Luciano Botelho brings ideal Latin colour and winning lyricism to the role of Lord Percy. While convincingly villainous, baritone Riccardo Simonetti’s Henry VIII produces more grit than velvet - he is from Lancashire. Serena Kay’s Smeaton is gamely acted if imperfectly co-ordinated with the pit. The role of Jane Seymour is a challenge for any star mezzo and young Julia Riley shows great potential in it. Nevertheless, the final scene before the scaffold is Donizetti’s dramatic and musical highlight and here Julie Unwin (ETO’s much-praised Tosca) at last comes into her own in the name part. Her earlier attempts at regal restraint seem a little stolid and she does not always characterise the text with sufficient force. Eschewing modish tricks, the production will doubtless acquire edge and focus as the run continues. The orchestral contribution is notably expert and elegant.